Repetition

How to spell repetition

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce repetition

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does repetition mean?

1. nounThe act of doing or saying something again, or an instance of something being repeated.

Repetition in a sentence

• Learning the vocabulary took constant repetition over several weeks.

• The report was weakened by needless repetition of the same statistic.

Where does repetition come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin repetitio, meaning 'a repeating', which was built on the verb repetere, 'to do or say again'. That verb joins the prefix re-, meaning 'again' or 'back', to petere, a busy old verb that literally meant 'to seek', 'to aim at', or even 'to attack'. So the original sense was something like 'to seek again' or 'to go back over', which slid neatly into the idea of doing the same thing once more. English took the word in through Old French and Latin during the late 1400s, keeping the tidy Latin shape intact. The same petere root still hides inside everyday relatives such as 'compete', 'appetite', and 'petition', which is a helpful reminder that the middle of repetition is spelled with that 'pet' chunk, not 'pit'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• petit- (from Latin petere: to seek, strive for)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)